PGA Tour Life with Michael Kim and Building a Lighted Par-3 Course with Grass Clippings

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

00:00:05
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball.

00:00:06
Speaker 1: In Friday Egg Frida Egg, Frida Egg Bride, Egg Lie, I'm.

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Speaker 3: About ready to run off the golf course.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. That's right, new branding Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Andy Johnson. Uh Today I have a big episode for you. Two interviews. I'm really excited about these. I have Michael Kim, a PGA Tour player University of cal standout golfer who just wrapped up a really strong year on the PGA Tour. So he has become a quite a big Twitter x I guess presence in the last six months, really putting out a lot of thoughts and stuff. He's a he's a you can tell a deep thinker in the game of golf. So I was really excited to chat with him just about his year, about his career, and a little bit about what's going on in golf. So talk with Michael Kim and then I'm also joined by Jimmy and Jake Hoselton, who started grass Clippings They are a They took a lifestyle brand really that you know was devoted to superintendents and has you know, it's evolved from close and merged to a They are redeveloping a par three course. They're turning into a lighted par three course in Tempe, Arizona, and they are also starting a par three golf league. Really exciting stuff, cool idea fresh perspective, and to two really good guys. I can't wait to get down there and check out the golf course. So let's get into it, but first let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsors. Today's podcast is brought to you by ag One. Ag One is a foundational nutritional supplement that delivers comprehensive nutrients to support whole body health. The stuff is great, you take I take it every morning. It's so simple. It's a scoop. I mix it up with a little water and it just gets me off to a good start every day. Uh. This thing is packed with nutrients and and different things that just cover your basics. So you know, you start every day feeling like, hey listen, I am, I'm good to go. And you know, if I have a really healthy day, that's awesome. But if I don't, I don't feel like I'm just missing everything out. So it replaces your multi vitamin, probiotic and more, and it's just a really easy habit. That's the biggest thing that I've seen a big benefit from. I take this every every day. I've been the most healthy I've been probably since before before college really, So I think the big thing here is just getting into the habit, getting into the routine, and ag one helps me do that. And it packs a punch with tons of nutrients, high quality ingredients that is delivered in a pretty tasty drink. So if a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, then try ag one and get a free one year supply of Vitamin D and five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag one dot com slash the fried Egg. That's drinkag one dot com slash the fried egg. Check it out all right. Now on to Michael kim Hey, when you were at cal what courses did you guys get to play in the Bay Area? And uh, I know you guys play a few and and what what was your favorite one?

00:04:04
Speaker 1: So we played well? We had our home tournament at the Metal Club, which was a Mackenzie design, cool little track. We played TPC at Stonebray quite a bit, we played Lake Merced quite a bit. We played Sef Club quite a bit. Never Olympic. That's usually the question I get. My favorite was probably to play every day Lake Merced. I think I haven't played it since the Redo. I think they did a pretty big renovation in a couple of years ago. But you'd likes. I mean, sef Club has like a completely different vibe to it. It's got this like super old school vibe. But the golf course itself is pretty simple. It's like really wide fairway's really big greens. The toughest part about that golf course is just there's no yardage yardages and the sprinkler heads and they don't allow lasers, so usually you're just walking stuff off of bunkers, which is we can kind of get a little annoying. So this is control is always a little hard. But I'd say Lakers Say is definitely my favorite.

00:05:22
Speaker 2: I was wondering if you were going to bring that up. I had heard from one of your teammates that you guys used to play there, you'd play and you wouldn't have caddies, and you had no yardages.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no yardages they give you. They would give us these yardage books, kind of these old school yardage books, and you know it would have like this one's at ninety nine to the front, this one is one hundred and forty three to the front. But there was enough numbers that like you couldn't quite tell if this was like the ninety nine or like the one ten. And so what I would start doing is you just walk off the front edge of the bunkers or the back edge of Trevor one was closer. But then you know, sometimes you'd be walking thirty yards just because if you're kind of far away from the bunker, and you know, they didn't give us a pin sheets, so we kind of guess how far on it was on the green. So it was kind of kind of different. But I mean the golf course is really cool and it's in a really cool spot, so no one ever complained obviously. Yeah.

00:06:32
Speaker 2: You know Ben Crenshaw he grew up I think it was Riverside playing in Austin, and he his course had no yardages. So at his new court, his Austin Golf Club, the club he kind of started down there. There's no yardages like on sprinkler heads or anything, but everybody uses guns. And I remember the one the first time I played there, my gun died like on the first hole. No, I mean it was kind of like by the end of the It's funny how like you adjust by the end, like you start to like, you know see, but like the first view, it's just so hard and uh, you know, it's it's it's it's funny how how that works.

00:07:14
Speaker 1: Definitely, Like I mean a lot of us we kind of hit our shots and we'd be like kind of posing, but then oftentimes it'd be like thirty feet short and so it was, uh, it was pretty It was always interesting. Yeah, and these days, you know, with the lasers and stuff, it's it make no sense.

00:07:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys had like a legendary team, one of one of the best college golf teams in recent years, and I think it's most people would agree in history of college golf. What do you think back to those times? Is there a specific story that always pops in your head? Uh, from the from that team.

00:07:55
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I mean we obviously had an amazing team. My sophomore year we had I tell people we had three first team All Americans and two second Team All Americans as our top five. That's kind of just shows how so how good our team was, uh, you know, Max one NCAA's and PAC twelve's. We finished individually one, two three a couple of times, I think, and we didn't win two regular season tournaments and one Michael Weaver was playing the Masters as a runner up. But at the USAM the year prior, so we weren't even well. We weren't like our top five wasn't there for that one other tournament. As far as story goes, you know, selfishly, I remember our worth the most because that was my that was our collegiate win. Thinking back, my favorite story was at Western Intercollegiate at Tampa.

00:09:02
Speaker 4: This is when.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: This is almost at the end of the year, and that one's really unique because you play as a foursome and you play with one of your teammates and after the first thirty six holes we were losing to u C. L A. I want to say, seven or eight shots, and I was playing with Max the final round and I remember we were walking up nine and Max and I had a good start against their top two guys, Pontus and Pedro, I'm pretty sure, and Ninus is part five kind of short up the hill and there was one big scoreboard behind the behind the green, and I think we were already up by like nine at that point. So in nine holes we had flipped it by like sixteen shots or so. And I remember thinking like, oh my god, this is kind of crazy. And I had had like a chip from just off the green at like twenty yards free eagle, and I chipped it in and I kind of lost my mind. I was like, let's go, and like slapped Max's hands so hard, and he had like a thirty foot downhill slider for his eagle butt and he's like, dude, I could feel my hands during during my eagle butt because you hit my head so hard. And we ended up winning pretty pretty easy, I think, by double jed shots. So that's definitely one of the stories I definitely remember.

00:10:41
Speaker 2: It's I guess like that's the thing about college golf is the team element. It matters so much that that I think that's probably one of the big things that the pro golf misses a little bit, is like that intent intensity and we see it at the Ryder Cup, but we don't really see it any other time where where you know, you're you're all playing individually, still in college golf, but there is this, you know, and it's just I guess it's just this thing with colleges, right. It's the magic of any college sport is that you have this general rooting interest in you you all are members of teams. But it is like kind of one of the things about men's professional golf or women's professional golf that like, I think it's just the one little thing that might be missing from it becoming much more popular.

00:11:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, golf is such an individual sport obviously that whenever we can get into a team setting, it's such a cool feeling. And even in college golf, it's kind of funny, like the entire round, you're just thinking about yourself, you know, you just need to do as best as you can, and then as soon as it's over, it's kind of like, all right, how's a team doing. And it's kind of a unique thing. And you know, some of my fondest memories are from golf, are absolutely from my cal days.

00:12:01
Speaker 2: Hey, well, you know this is a little off topic here, but as a CAL what do you what do you want to happen with all this realignment stuff.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: That's so I mean, like it's crazy, right, I mean, it seems like the four schools are like the ones left hanging and and you know, as soon as as soon as U, C, l A, and USC left for the Big ten was it last year? I felt like you could kind of see it coming, and I was, honestly is surprised at Oregon and Stanford and some of the other big name sports colleges weren't leaving already. And then you know this year there they left, and it's it's kind of crazy. You know. Unfortunately Cal football and basketball are just not you know, big names. Not too many people watch, so will be interesting. I mean, if they joined the a CEC, I think just I mean it's so bad. That sounds terrible for for everyone involved, for the Cal students and the ACC students that have to fly over, like are they going to meet in Texas or somewhere, Like that's obviously not gonna happen. So like it's so it's such a weird thing, and you know, maybe we're this is just the transition into just maybe just two or three massive conferences or something who.

00:13:30
Speaker 2: Knows as a as an Illinois that lives in the Bay Area, I am, I'm like rooting for somehow this turning into the into CAL getting into the into the Big Ten. Just so I uh, I got I could go to basketball games. That's a great arena for basketball at CAL and uh and go to some Illinois basketball games, I think, I mean, I it's it's interesting for golf too, with the with the realignment in a way, like you know, the PAC twelve was this great, uh golf conference and now it's getting disbanded, and you know, the Big Ten is you know, Illinois is obviously a great golf school, but like, for the most part, very weak. And they're adding USC and UCLA and Oregon's you know, pretty good program too, and Washington's pretty good program, but it's like they're still a pretty weak golf conference, you know. And it's a the non revenue sports stuff is just it's it's fascinating. And I guess golf with conference is a little different, right, yeah, I.

00:14:26
Speaker 1: Mean golf, it's it's not as much like home and away games, right you just go to certain tournaments hosted by certain schools, so you know, golf is probably one of the sports that's least affected by all this conference relignment. Like, I don't think Cal's schedule is going to change very much at all just because of any of this realignment. But yeah, it's it's just so weird to think that USC and UCLA and Oregon and Washington aren't part of the Pac twelve and whatnot. Because one of, you know, one of my you know, fondest memories at Cal was we my freshman year we went, Yeah, I was still packed twelve. Yeah, packed twelve in our programs. That was our programs first ever, and so I remember us we were kind of the underdogs USC C LA were really good, and and we ended up beating Oregon in a playoff and that was just one of the coolest things that were just celebrating with the team afterwards. And it's kind of a shame that that might not happen for future teams.

00:15:36
Speaker 2: You were obviously extremely highly regarded, highly ranked amateur golfer, and when you when you turn pro leaving college, what do you think when you look back? Was the biggest adjustment?

00:15:54
Speaker 1: I think, for one, the amount of golf that you that you play, especially if you get yourself right into the corn Ferry Tour. It's pretty it's staggering. I mean my first year, I think I've played as soon as kind of the summer months hit. I think I've played like eleven out of thirteen weeks. That's just playing every corn Fairy Tour event you can, you know, play just to try and get into that top twenty five. And in college and an amateur golf you might play, you know, two weeks in a row, maybe three weeks in a row, but certainly not that much. That's certainly one of the biggest adjustments.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: I think people people always overlook how draining a seventy two hole tournament is too. Like people are like, oh, it's golf, it's not that hard. But like there there's a weird thing with like the mental and the physical aspects. And it's usually you know, it's usually hot. Like you know, anybody that played last week in Memphis is is dealing with some like you know stuff two days later from that. You know that that that heat, you know, And I think that's the thing that's a little overlooked always with golf, is.

00:17:13
Speaker 1: That like the.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: I think there's just like a mental burden. No other sport spans that kind of time where you and has that kind of kind of almost like anguish and thought. It's reactionary. You're in the moment In most almost every other sport. The only thing I can think of that really relates is like pitching is the thing that I always think about is like the best relation. And those guys are pitching once every five days, right, one hundred percent.

00:17:42
Speaker 1: You know, for us, it's like a slow burn right every every other sport it's kind of a short You give it all you got and then you're off for a few days. I agree with your pitching thought, Like I am always so jealous of reactionary sports where you're reacting to the ball and it's it's not a whole lot of thinking in between. Like you know, even even in baseball as a hitter, you're just reacting to the ball. There's not obviously I'm obviously not a baseball player. But I just can't imagine you having as money as much time and thoughts as I have, you know, at it at bat compared to when I'm you know, walking to the to the ball and you know this hazard is staring me at the face. And I've thought about this hazard for the last you know, four or five days trying to figure out what how I'm going to avoid this thing, and and stuff like that. You know, like at the at the John Deere when I won, Like I remember getting like three hours of sleep on average, just because I was so stressed. I barely slept Friday night and I barely slept Saturday night, and I still had to try and play another eighteen holes on Sunday.

00:18:58
Speaker 2: It's, uh, yeah, It's crazy how it weighs out. Is there like off the top of your head, Like I always think certain golf courses like there are aspects of them, there's like one feature that you think about when you know you're playing there. It immediately like pops in your head and you're just like it's like, oh, what am I going to do about the fourth green? You know, like what am I going to push it up? There is there one that comes to mind on a tour course that people would know.

00:19:28
Speaker 1: It's always it's always the bad ones, right you never never, Yes, I know exactly what I'm going to do on the first toll. It's that one's easy, you know. It's always like the ones you've had trouble with the ones you've all you've like hit a really bad shot in the past for me personally, like Travelers whole. Let me think ten to eleven, thirteen is this part five? Is this dumb dog leg around the water? And you know, for me, anything that has water be on the right is like out one hundred percent of you thinking about that hole and what I'm going to do on that tea box, especially with driver, if I'm trying to a driver and and that hole there's water right. And when you're fit as wild as I've had in the past, like you think of everything else and there's like ob way left and so that's definitely one that comes to mind. I mean, every every golf course we go to, you you have that one or two hole that you're you're thinking about. Like Memphis, I think I want to say it's I haven't played there in a while, so I don't remember every hole, but I want to say the twelfth hole is this dog leg right part four with water all the way down the right. I want to say it's twelve, but I may be wrong. Like that one was always a pain in the butt for me.

00:20:57
Speaker 2: It is, you know, like there's always that that you just like you get done with and you just like breathe a sigh. Really, you know, there's always like one or two spots at every course where they just stick out. It's something it's I mean, I think that's the hardest part about golf. It's just when when there's something that drives uncertainty and for every player you like, for you, you're saying something on the right, you know, a hazard or beyond the right. For another guy it's it's a hazard, oh beyond the left that gives them the HEV gvs. For some people, most people it's like especially when you get hazard on both sides, that's like good, that's terrible. I think that actually makes it kind of easier because you know, you just have to you have to hit a really good shot. There's nowhere to be Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely you had So you had your best year to date. I think that's safe to say. Obviously you won the John Deere, but I think this year, if you, if you looked at it in totality, you played really some really great golf. What part of your game or the changes that you've made in the lead up to this year do you think really.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: Of that, You know, to take it. I guess from like the very beginning, like even right when I turned pro, like my game was in wasn't in a very good shape. I turned pro because I had status on the Corn Fairry Tour and it seemed like the right time to turn pro. But even as I won and I got on tour, I never really felt great about my driver. And it wasn't until last year that I went and saw Sean Foley and he kind of really helped turn my driver around. And that's when I really felt like I had a lot better control over my t shots and my swing in general. And you know, ever since that Corn Fairry Tour season last year, I felt a lot better and better about my game.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: What type of changes did you guys make. I'm not like a huge swing guy, but I'm always curious what were you trying to do? And what what did? What were you what were you changing?

00:23:08
Speaker 1: For one we? I think I got caught in trying to play like swing theory with my with my golf swing. You know, in theory, a cut is the more accurate shot, and in theory, you know a closed a more closed club face at the top is going to lead to less face rotation. At impact and stuff like that, and Sean kind of got me to realize that, you know, that is true in theory, but for me, what's what's the best swing for me? And a lot of that came back to I grew up playing a draw, so we went went back to playing a draw for almost based right now for basically every single golf shot I hit and and actually really getting my hands more involved. I feel like these days the the hot thing is to kind of let your body, I guess, control the club a bit more and take the hands out of it. But you know, for me, I realized that was totally not the way to go. And those couple of things, and you know, technique wise, we made sure I got a lot more with I got a lot less risk cock. Anything that would help me release the club and give me more time to release the club. That's the direction we went and it's it's been great so far.

00:24:41
Speaker 2: It's like almost a little counterintuitive, right in the sense of where all the all the trends are going, you needed to go back. But that's I think that's a fascinating aspect of golf, is like right, it's like there's no one swing fits all for everybody. Everybody needs to do what's best for them.

00:24:58
Speaker 1: Definitely, you know there are there definitely are like a few, like certainties you need to hit a golf ball straight, but there's maybe like three or four of those things, and they're just very basic things, like you know, like grips. You know, people like to talk about like a certain fundamental grip and set up. Like even on tour, I see hundreds of different grip and set up variations, all within you know, a certain spectrum, I guess, but you know, it's golf. The golf swing is so has ends up being so personal, like I you know, it's felt like I spent like six to seven months trying to swing more like Victor Hovlin when I'm not Victor Hoveland and I need to swing the best way for me.

00:25:48
Speaker 2: I think this is a crazy thing about you guys on tours, Like you're, uh, one of the two hundred best players in the world, one hundred best players in the world, and you guys all look at each other other and want to do what the other person does, and and other people look at something you do and want that, and it's like it's it's it's something I find like utterly fascinating. Is like the yeah, it's it's what makes golf. It's like the mental just the the mental burden of golf. Right, you always want some something somebody else has, but it's you know, the reality is like you have to go on your own journey.

00:26:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's so stupid, like why if you think think on it, like why would you ever think that way? Like, you know, I got here for a particular reason, and you should try and improve that as opposed to copy someone else's swing. And you know, I'm confident I can confidently say I am not the only guy that is looking at Victor or Colin Morikawa and like trying to analyze what they do so well and how can I incorporate some of that into my game? And while there are you know, good and bad good ways to do that, I probably took it way too, way too much. And it's funny like when you look at someone else's swing, like let's say, because I've brought up Victor, when I look at Victor's swing, I'm always looking at, oh, look at how well he does this, Look at how well he does that? And then when I look at my own swing, it's like, oh, look how poorly I do that. Yes, it's like this weird psycho. You know, your brain works in such a weird way that you see all the benefits, all the good things about his swing, and yet you try to look for all the bad things in your own and honestly it should be the complete opposite. It's it's crazy, it's you know.

00:27:43
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, I had Luke Donald on the pod and I asked him. I can't remember how I phrased the question, but it was something about, is there some moment in your career you look back on and have like some regret? And he brought up the final round at Marion, which he was in the in the hunt. He was paired, so he's paired with Justin Rose, and he said he walked away and he just thought, if I could hit it like that guy that, then I'm going to win major championships. And it's like this this guy was I think he was number.

00:28:16
Speaker 1: One in the world at the time, pretty close, yeah or right there, just just like kind of starting to come down, but he is very close. Yeah.

00:28:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you're you're one of the you know, ten best players of the world and you're in one of the if not the final group, the second to last group, and you walk away, well, yes, you walk away from the tournament like and this is the debilitating thing that golf can do to anybody. It's like you walk away like I always. I said this to somebody recently who had a chance to win one of the women's majors and she was so down. She was in the one of the final groups, and I'm like, listen, you finished whatever, tea whatever, and it's like, but you had a chance to win. There's only like five people in this tournament the set that had a chance to win. It's just crazy that, like psychologically the game can do that to you where you know, Luke Donald's like I then remade my swing and it was like the worst decision I made in my career.

00:29:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's so crazy. And once, you know, as professional golfers, once it gets like stuck into your head that like you need to do a certain thing, it's just like you can only think about that when even though there are like hundreds of other examples of a guy achieving you know, whatever you want to achieve, Like for me, like I want to hit it straight straight with the driver, like you know, Victor Hovelin is not the only straight driver in this entire planet, Like, there are plenty of other other great drivers of the golf ball that does you know, something's very different than him. But like I got stuck in this like, oh my gosh, like if I could only like have the close club face of his and just hold it on like how and watching him hit drivers, how free hit he looks, and you completely ignore every other thing that has to do with your swing, you know, someone else's swing, and you just get so focused in on that. It's it's not healthy, It's I don't recommend it for anyone.

00:30:20
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the best is he's probably you know, looking at it at your like around the green and on the green and saying the same thing being like, you know, if I could just chip and put like Michael, and that's the beautiful thing about golf. You know, I'm curious with you obviously had some struggles in your career. It's not just been like a you know, like a tugboat just going going out to see it.

00:30:50
Speaker 1: It's not just a couple of miscuts here and there.

00:30:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you you've obviously you've worked your way out of that period of time, and and you've probably you're a very thoughtful person on Twitter, and when you've reflected on that period, what do you think kind of happened?

00:31:08
Speaker 1: You know, like I said, starting from college, I knew I was struggling off the tee right when I turned pro, and I was somehow able to get my tour card based on my iron game and short game and putting. And you know, during that bad stretch, I really tried to make a lot of changes. What ended up being with a bunch of different coaches, and you know, like it's like, you know, where when when you're in as deep of a hole as I was, it it feels like it feels like kind of you're lost. But there's a lot of different like roads you can take. When each road is like a different swing coach. I can kind of go see him and try his stuff. I can go see him and try that stuff, and they all, you know, sound great and they all make sense in your head. But you know, it's just, you know, sometimes you just have to end up picking the right guy. And I think for me, it just took a while for me to find the right guy. Not that they are bad coaches or anything. It's just, you know, for whatever reason, it didn't fit with me at that time. And you know, I ended up seeing you know, a few different coaches and you know, these guys are the best of the best. You know. Luckily I was on tour and so I'm I can call up you know whoever and ask, hey, can I get a lesson and he's most likely going to say yes and so. And for me, like I've I was never that guy to change coaches often. I was all, you know, I've only grown up. I only basically had two swing coaches and and one that I had been with, James Oh for a really long time. And so when I take a guy, I tend to stay with him, stay committed to him, even though maybe like the first six months hadn't gone while I still kind of trusted his process and maybe that's why it lasted longer than some others. But I also feel like that has helped me, you know, I feel like get to a longer career with that thought process.

00:33:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think continunity is super important with with coaching. It's like, you know, it's uh, James O. That was that's a blast for my past. I watched him at Conway Farms. I grew up at New York Conway Farms. I watched him when the junior am there.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the youngest winner at that point. I don't know if he still is or not, but yeah.

00:33:40
Speaker 2: Beat Aaron Badley, who was just you know, it was that was he was the main attraction, Aaron Baddley coming. It was like I remember watching him and just being like, God, this guy is great. But it was there, you know, where was the I guess in your mind of you where was the low point? And then when was the Where was there a point where you're like, you know what, I'm like really onto it and I'm I'm I know, I'm coming. I'm on my way back.

00:34:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, which low point do you want me to basically? I think I think my lowest low point was after the Windham Championship in twenty twenty one. I was outside the top two hundred. I ran out of my winners category from the John Deere. I thought I had to go back to Q School. I had no confidence at all my game.

00:34:40
Speaker 3: I was.

00:34:40
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would you know, if I went to Q school, I don't. I didn't think I would be able to get my cart back there. That was probably one of the definite low points. And when I and actually another low point, another real low point. It was a year after not even a year, just a few months after I realized the tour gives you one year of corn Ferry Tour status if you play for five years on the PGA Tour, and I was able to use that, and I started at the Bahamas and the first the Bahamas, the Cartage Carnage. I mean there's literally water and ob on every hole, on every side, like you dream, you think of like the worst course for me at that point, it was those two Bahamas events. You could not design a worst golf person for me.

00:35:41
Speaker 2: But you know, they those events when they were on TV that first year they were on TV the greatest. It was electric.

00:35:48
Speaker 1: It was impossible, And I wish people could, like on TV, it's like they show the good golfers or the guys that are playing well. They're like, oh, they're hitting fairways and maybe one water ball. But I wish for those two events they should show the worst players playing that week because because you'll see like golf balls going into the water on every hole.

00:36:09
Speaker 2: Anyway, the scoring was all out of whack. Too, because the.

00:36:14
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes. But to get back to my story, So the second Bahamas event, this is about three months I want to say I've worked with Sean Folly and you know, for whatever reason, it felt different. It felt like I had more control and I was really starting to believe in this process. And the second Bahamas event, I get off to a decent start on the front nine, I'm hitting it pretty well, and then all of a sudden on the second nine, like you know, it's like the nightmares coming back. It's like I can't hit it anywhere straight. My driver's going really far right, and for I feel like I'm doing everything well but everything that Sean wants me to do, but it's not going well. And I remember I was in like dead last place after that first round and just feeling so dejected, Like you know, it's golf is crazy because they always it always, you always get that hope and then you know as soon as you think, like I think I might have it, it just you know crashes you back down. And that was certainly a low point, and you know, I still had the second round. I knew I wasn't going to make the cut, and you know, I'm just kind of basically going through the motions, hopefully today is better. And then on my fifth hole of that day, I started on the back nine, I hit a you know, bad drive again and I was cleaning my club base and I realized I had a crack on my driver and so and then so I thought like, okay, maybe, like maybe you know, I was because I was hitting it fine on the front nine and I don't know what changed on the back then where I started hitting it bad. So I thought, oh, maybe like that when my driver cracked and that's why the ball was going all over the place. And so luckily you have the two Bahamas event and then you actually have because it ends on a Wednesday. It goes Sunday to Wednesday. You have like an extra week and a half until you go to Panama for the next tournament. And so I went back home. I asked the Cali rep to send me a new driver, and he sent me a new driver head along with a different model head actually, and I used the other different model head and I was like, I actually think this is better. And so I brought that club to Panama. And Panama is really when I first knew like, okay, I'm definitely on the right step. This is a small step, but it's definitely like a foundation that I can work off of because I hit the ball great there. I just remember thinking, like the front nine of that Panama event, I hit as well as I had in years, and it's kind of like, you know what, no matter what happens from this tournament, you know, whether I missed the cut or whatever, I knew that was a good, good starting point. And I finished maybe like fifteenth or seventeenth. It was like a top twenty, and I remember texting Sean. I was like, you know, this was a top twenty, which you know, in the long run doesn't mean anything, but for me, it was like it meant the world to me because I knew I knew this was something I could build off of, and I knew I was on the right path. And it was the first time I felt that in in you know, ten years.

00:39:43
Speaker 2: It seemed like it's a wild game. It's like sometimes it takes like one shot you get I've recently, I took like a month, I hadn't played in a month, and I came back and I was hitting the ball so great, and it lasted for you know, a handful of rounds and then like then this one round nothing changes all sudden. It's going all over the lot and it's like now I probably not could play for a few days for a little while. And all I'm thinking about is like I have no clue where the boss going, you know, And it was like a week ago. It's like I know exactly where it's going.

00:40:16
Speaker 4: You know.

00:40:17
Speaker 1: It's it's it's such a weird game.

00:40:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, what have you ever putt it better than you put it at that John Deere that you won?

00:40:24
Speaker 1: I don't think so, I don't know. Yeah, I so, if you know strokes gained I record was it wasn't a tour record, but I gained thirteen and a half strokes on the week, which is an absurd number and I haven't even gone close to it since. Maybe that was kind of you know, I got too close to the sun at that week, but I yeah, there was you know it. It's just one of those weeks where where I felt great about my reads and I just felt like if I can get it on the green, I had a chance at making birds.

00:41:00
Speaker 2: So now now you're just chasing the dragon, just chasing that week. It's nothing to ever don't live out.

00:41:10
Speaker 1: You.

00:41:11
Speaker 2: It seems like you've made a very a intensive decision to be more active on social media this year, and I you know, I think every golf fan that's on on Twitter has has better rewarded of that. It's been really like you've you've lent some insights and you know, you've you've made me think about things more critically. I've I've found some of the things that you posted fascinating and like, I've learned a lot of stuff. What went into the decision to just turn on the social media because I remember, I like remember the early days. I was like, oh, all sudden, Michael Kimp's coming off the top rope with some opinions and takes you know what what what into it? And have you enjoyed the experience?

00:41:54
Speaker 1: So I got rid of my Instagram, uh maybe last year or so because it wasn't you know, everyone's so happy on Instagram and it's kind of based on lies, and you know it was it's so fake. Everyone's having the time of their lives on Instagram and and I'm not the biggest picture taker, and so I decided to get rid of Instagram and Twitter. I don't know exactly what what decided it. I did figure I should keep one of them, at least one of them active. And you know, I think I played with Max early last year at the Safeway the first two rounds, and I, you know, Max, you know, to me is just the college teammate slash roommate that I had grown up. And to see kind of how much is his brand and his presence had grown at a golf tournament was was really eye opening for one. And it was obviously really cool to see. And you know, if I'm not going to, you know, use Instagram, might as well use Twitter. And I also felt like through my ups and you know, my big down as a professional now just yeah, hopefully hopefully big ups. But you know, through that process, I had seen a lot of different coaches, and I felt like I picked up on a lot of knowledge about the game, even more so than other tour pros that that you know, play out here and you know, golf is so hard and you see I played pro ams and you just see so many bad shots, and I felt like I could maybe help some people better get a better handle on golf and whether it's a good experience there good days and bad days, oh yeah, you know, I had like.

00:44:02
Speaker 2: The well, actually, crowd just really kills me sometimes.

00:44:07
Speaker 1: Like two weeks ago, I had this old man like like tell me that he could beat me at golf and he was like a six handicap. And you know, I've I don't block people because they almost wear it as a badge of honor. I just end up muting a lot of people that have weird comments here in there. So it's been good and bad. It's weird. Like I don't realize like how many fellow pros like are on Twitter too, like silently, oh yeah, I'll I'll like post some random thing. I Whenever I post something on Twitter, it's I just assume it's just random people that I'll never meet in my life who will watch this or read this. And then like the very next day, like a fellow Torporo will come up to me and goes, oh, like like you you thought that about this?

00:44:59
Speaker 4: Huh?

00:44:59
Speaker 1: And I like, oh, I didn't think you would read it, but uh so that's I still don't know how to react when people come up to me and see it stuff like that. But it's been it's been good and.

00:45:12
Speaker 2: That Yeah, I've I've learned. I just uh, I just laugh at everything. I I just I you know, when somebody says something to me that's like ridiculous back and they're being very serious, I just laugh about it. It's a you know, it's it's too uh two preposterous of a place to to take it, take everything seriously. I feel like let's get into a little bit of a little current events here. I'm curious a player in your position, how do you feel about the uh signature signature events for next year and and no cuts?

00:45:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, obviously, selfishly, I'm not going to be the biggest fan of it because I'm in the out. I'm on the outside looking in. And you know, with this new schedule where it's starting in January and ending in August, this season is that much shorter, which means, you know, the top guys playing in all those signature events are guaranteed points, and it just seems like the head start is going to be even bigger. And you know, the answer you get from the tour and from everyone is you know, play better and you'll be you'll be the one in. But you know, things are changing at such a fast, fast paced these days. You know, I certainly am not going to have any influence on however, all these things work out, you know, and so I've decided to not worry about it too much. You know, like most decisions, they'll tell me what the decision was and kind of go from there. And you know, even with all these signature events, vents and designated events and whatever you want to call it, with the big, big, you know, decision with the merge of the PIFF and the Live like, you know, this schedule might last maybe one year, it might could be completely different in two years. So we'll just I'm of the mentality that I'm just gonna see how it goes and try to try to play as best as I can.

00:47:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was I was talking to a golf course that's that's you know, somebody that works at a golf course that's you know, might do a big renovation, and they were talking about majors and I'm like, listen, like that PGA in May, it might not be there for much longer. You know, this thing could be if the if that framework agreement goes in, like who knows what this is going to be. I mean, it's it's amazing how the tour went from this like boat that could be rocked and nothing changed for thirty years to everything that changed in the last you know, eighteen months and has changed three times since it changed first.

00:48:07
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy.

00:48:09
Speaker 2: And as a player in your position, you're one hundred and I think sixteenth in the world. You're you finished seventy eighth of the FedEx Cup. You're you know, arguably one of the hundred best people at your profession that tens of millions of people play around the planet. The discourse has become that players in your position, you know, the best of the very very best, don't bring value to the table.

00:48:37
Speaker 1: Is that?

00:48:38
Speaker 2: Is that a weird thing to think about? You try like, you know, because they you know, effectively it's hey, there's twenty ten, fifteen guys of the batter and those are the ones that are How does that feel?

00:48:50
Speaker 1: You know? That doesn't bother me as much like whenever, you know, Thursday Friday, unless I'm in a featured group, no one's coming to watch me. They're there to watch golf, and so they're at the event. But I don't take too much offense in that. But at the same time, you know, if Rory McElroy is playing against a scratch, just a regular scratch handicap. No one's going to watch that either because you know the competition is just going to be so boring and and so you know, there is I guess the value is is is the mules and us as a collective. But you know, Rory himself is obviously a massive draw. And I get that, like you know, whenever I'm at tournaments and just see the crowd that he has, and you know, Rory and John and whoever you want to put out there with the with the top guys, I understand that. It doesn't it doesn't, you know, offend me or anything. I totally get it, like you know, other than other than a couple of people saying, hey, I like your tour these days, Like no one has ever recognized me, even at a PJ Tour event like quick quick, random story, like I was playing. I was doing a sponsor value at CJ Cup in Korea and it was this, the sponsor value is, We're supposed to go like six of us at a at a cocktail party hosted by c J and we're there to mingle. And I it was me, Charlie Offfman, Jimmy Walker, and so it was in Korea, so they had with Korean people attending, so they gave everyone translators, and I'm I was born in Koreas, I'm fluent in Korean, and I might have been just an invisible painting on the wall because no one recognized me, and they recognized Charlie and Jimmy. So everyone was talking to me. I was talking to them, and know me, I can actually communicate with them, you know, in the in Korean, was basically just thought I was there as a you know, a waiter or whatever. So I looked at Phil and I was like, can I go. No one's even talking to me. They just think I'm here to enjoy the party, which is which is totally fine, and I get it. And so I've never had this idea that I bring like a ton of value to the PGA Tour. I I am thankful that I am playing in it, and you know, hopefully I can make the most out of it.

00:51:35
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on the golf ball and the U s g A A. R. Day's proposed model, local rule and potential rollback.

00:51:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is where we we start to probably not see eya eye in this in this subject Hey.

00:51:53
Speaker 2: I'm open to other opinions, you know, with the.

00:51:58
Speaker 1: With the rollback, I you know, as a tour player, I struggle to see, like I understand the point of like the courses can't get any longer. I one hundred percent with you there, But you know, most of the golf is played by amateurs and US pros are I just struggled to see the big footprint that we have supposedly on the PGA tour. If I'm up the stance that if you're going to roll it back, I think you should roll it back for everyone because I still think you know where you cut off, the where you cut off. You know, when do you use the shorter ball and when you use the normal ball. That's so in a grey area. And you know, if that happens, that means the USAM is going to play the shorter ball. That means NCA may or may not play the shorter ball, and so it just creates I don't know, it seems very messy to me, and to be honest, I don't trust the USGA to handle this correctly, just because like the groove rule was pointless, the scoring average went down. The modernization of the rules to me, has done almost nothing to speed up the game or whatever. So I see it as it's gonna change very little, and it's gonna have a big effect on the companies, and and I just think, you know, you're just gonna make golf more expensive than anything.

00:53:39
Speaker 2: I guess I would say, I agree that they should just roll back everything. I think then the distance problem, like, you know, I went through, you know, I'm not like long I can hit it with a bottom distance PGA Tour player, but I went through. I played a year and a half with retro clubs, and I found that it was a much more interesting game when I was, you know, hitting lots of fives and four irons into you know, four hundred and forty yard par fours as opposed to nine irons. You know, And you know, I think from that standpoint, like the distance problem exists at every golf course, right if you're play, if you're a local golf course that's sixty three hundred yards, was a lot of them exist, you know, somebody that hits it two eighty only hits wedges. I think, like the big thing that I where I really stand on it, beyond just the golf course aspect, is that I think the the pgh to or product is infinitely better when there's more variety in the shots that are required to succeed. You know, if if you go and you play tournaments where you have to hit a you know, basically every type of shot. You know, when you have to hit three and four irons into par fours, you have to hit you know, fairway wood into part five, sometimes maybe even lay up on par fives. The layup is an actual skill in golf that is a more interesting game. Just like when Tennis went into this serve volley domination where it you know, it was just if you hit a big serve in the point was basically over right. They realized the game got less interesting. And when a long player like Rory or John Rahm is really like hitting ten wedges around, I don't think that's necessarily the best product, right.

00:55:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't disagree with you there. I just feel like, well, if you're going to make the ball go shorter, like the longer hitters are just going to it's gonna be an even more advantage and guys are just gonna hit driver even more. And I understand like having variety is great. I totally get that it's just that like if it's gonna come down twenty yards, that's probably just one club maybe two okay, two club difference, And I just don't know, Like guys like Rory is just gonna hit still gonna hit driver everywhere. I feel like the bomb and gouge idea is gonna be even more in play because with shorter distance, it's just the dispersion is gonna be shorter. And a guy like Tony Finow, I don't know what his ball speed averages, maybe like high one seventies, Like he's just gonna end up swinging a little harder because he can, and you know, selfishly for me, like I'm right around average distance wise, Like it's just gonna play more into guys like Cameron Champ and more into guys like Rory McRoy In my opinion.

00:56:47
Speaker 2: I'm not sure though, because like to this week, this will air tomorrow, so that during the week, Like I think like Olympia Fields is a great example, right is like if you can hit it three, if you can carry it three ten, you can effectively bypass every hazard there. Like I've played their number of times, like all the bunkers I like to stand on tea. I'm like, I got to hit a good one. I got to hit a good one, whereas Rory dj rom like they just hit it over him. And in a way, I think like one of the things that happens when you bring it back is that you deal with bunkers. A lot of those long hitters don't deal with bunkers, and that's the deterrent to bomb and gouge, is that there's actual things that could cause hiccups in there.

00:57:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I I am of the belief that bunkers in America are too easy, and I say that as a tour pro, like sounds crazy, but like bunkers in you know, British opens, like it was at Royal Liverpool, are actual hazards and and I feel like they should have a bit more penalty to it. But at the same time, I you know, it's just the golf courses that we go to are some, you know, not some of the most intricate designs, I guess, and I've been I just started working with the stats guy earlier this year, and it's clear, like the stats show as long as as long as you can hit your second shot or get to the green after the t shot. It's always advantageous to just hit it as far as you possibly can, and you know, I feel like you need to do that with better course design, which I just guess there's not that Honestly, there's not that many with the cape with that design from that distance. And I see your point that like if you bring it even back, maybe you bring those designs into play. I guess yeah.

00:58:58
Speaker 2: I listen, I'm not going to stand here and say that there's like, you know, a ton of great designs on the PGA Tour that are gonna just like, you know, magically be better. I think, like, I think the really good designs will will stand out even more. And I think like one of the you know, one of the one of my other product complaints with the tour would be that that it doesn't you know, you go on this TPC swing and it's like, oh God, like you know, another one of these. But that was one thing I wanted to talk about you. You played the the Open this year. You had a great tweet thread just kind of about majors, But like, what is it about major setup that really differs from the PGA Tour For me?

00:59:41
Speaker 1: I think, well, differs because pick any tournament I've been to, like Travelers, I know exactly what I'm going to do on every whole because I've played, Yeah, I've been on tour for seven eight years now. I've played that tournament and that go course for you know, twenty eight to thirty rounds, so I know where all the pins are. I know exactly my strategy on every hole. Majors other than Augusta, it's mostly a new golf course, So I think there's always that that getting to know, you know, preparing, that's always going to be different. And you know, like at LACC, nobody had seen that golf course. You can kind of guess where the pins are going to be. But you know, they try to go to unique and interesting golf courses, which which is great. And you know, Links golf is kind of in its own own area.

01:00:42
Speaker 2: It's completely different.

01:00:43
Speaker 1: Completely different. I think I fell in love with Link's golf as soon as I played one round back in eighteen at Carnoustie, and I was like, this is the way golf is truly meant to be played. But you know, it's just the prepared part is so different, and generally, unfortunately, most majors these days ask a pretty specific question of how well can you drive it and how well can you hit your irons and usually mid to long iron, So that's why the cream rises to the crop so often. But you know, just that preparing one way different.

01:01:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, they're they're amazing tournaments when you look back on them. And I think the thing that I always find just intriguing about when you think about when you think back to like, you know, I think back to the openness Saint Andrews and watching that is like how you know, everybody talks about this and that, and like it's just like there's so many little moments and it's the the magic of golf is that, like, you know, there's four rounds and there's so many little moments and it could be a bounce here, a lip out here, a lip in there, and that's you know what decides these tournaments and and uh, you know it's it's uh, majors are majors are the best out there. I hope, I hope we get to see you playing a lot more.

01:02:11
Speaker 1: I do too. Yeah, it's just you know, majors. It's also gonna you know, the vibe is definitely different too, because, for one, you know, it's a major, and on the PGA Tour other than you know, maybe like two or three different holes where they try to focus on the grand stands. On majors, you see more grand stands. You just see more people, so you can feel the the the bigger energy when you play it too, So that also adds to the atmosphere, unless unless it's at La CEC where there's a they block out as many spectators as possible.

01:02:48
Speaker 2: That first team was something else.

01:02:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first first team was interesting. You're basically hitting from the putting green while while basically members of the L A c C Are just watching you, watching your t off. Uh and uh, yeah, I mean it's definitely a cool spot for sure.

01:03:08
Speaker 2: It is a cool course. Hey, Michael, thanks so much for coming on and give us some time. So many more things I want to talk about. We'll have to have you come back on if you if you got the time, uh at some point, and look forward to seeing you out on tour. But everybody should follow you on Twitter and uh and and thank you so much.

01:03:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely happy to do it all.

01:03:35
Speaker 2: Right, before we get to Jimmy and Jake from Grass Clippings, let's talk about our next partner, the us g A. I have been home in Chicago area for the last few weeks and one of the cool things I went to my parents' house and uh, you know what was waiting there my USGA back tag because I am a USGA member. One of the neat things. I got a little bit nostalgic looking at it. They put like the member since so I've been a USGA member since nineteen ninety nine. It is something I do now at this point in my life, to support all the good things that the USGA is doing, from their programs to get more people introduced to the game of golf, especially you know, young people introducing the game of golf, to the stuff they're doing with the water research. Also to support their amateur championships that I think are awesome. Obviously you got the US am going on right now. We're getting into the season. You know, they're they're lower profile amateur events, but they are the ones that really I can attest to mean the most to the people playing. You know, the US Open, the US Women's Open qualifiers, people that you know that means a lot. But I think you know, you get into the season the amateurs, you saw it with Shane Bacon. I think he was overwhelmed with just, you know, getting to play in one of these. You don't know when you're when you get into your thirties, you're never sure you get to play in these, and they run world class events. But for many, many reasons, I am a USGA member, and uh, you know, it's cool to see the bag tag. So you know, if you are interested in becoming a USGA member, you get tons of benefits. You get the hat, you get the golf journal, you get obviously the bag tag, and you support a lot of great causes. If you're interested in becoming a member, visit USGA dot org slash fried Egg. That's USGA dot org slash fried Egg, and uh, become one today. Now let's kick it to Jimmy and Jake from grass Clippings. So you guys, uh, Jimmy and Jake are the founders of grass Clippings, And I just would love to hear about the start, Like how how did this start? Right now, obviously, and I probably mentioned this in the intro, you are building a new par three golf course that's going to be lit. But it started really as like a lifestyle brand.

01:06:08
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you want me to take it away, Jim, What a flat so.

01:06:15
Speaker 4: One giant snowball effect, really, And you nailed it on the head that it started as a lifestyle brand. And so in twenty eighteen, we co founders, myself, Jake, Jimmy Connor, Riley, and Pete Wilson all came together and set out to start a golf company that gave recognition to the greenskeepers. That was the overarching theme from day one. We were fortunate enough to know a greenskeeper of the course that we grew up playing in northern Arizona, and he was the heart and soul and knew so much about the course, and we kind of had this this you know, backstage experience of interacting with him and nobody at the club knew who he was because we would walk around the clubhouse with him, and no one knew that this was like the crutch to the whole operation. And so we had sat on the idea for a long time and ultimately, when the time was right, we let it fly grass Clippings. It wasn't necessarily, we weren't searching for a name, but when it just hit us that grass Clippings would be a great name, and it was a good way using the word grassy to describe anything that's in the realm or like a greenskeeper. We knew that was the right name for it. So late twenty eighteen we incorporated grass Clippings, Inc. And got to rolling and things really started slow, just like with a a stay Grassy hat and some grass Clipping shirts and all of this was sort of the back end leading up to what our launch event was, which is the Grass Clippings Open Golf Tournament, which ultimately led to three years of of.

01:08:23
Speaker 3: Work and reason to go get our own golf course.

01:08:27
Speaker 2: What would you say? Drew you to the to the superintendent and and they're what they do, Like what what is it about them that you find underappreciated?

01:08:39
Speaker 4: So you're talking to two of the four co founders well, and we actually kind of added a co founder, TJ.

01:08:46
Speaker 3: Forrester.

01:08:47
Speaker 4: Give him a shout out, he's our CFO. But you're you're talking to golf purists. And even though we're sort of adding these eccentric details and and adjectives to the game of golf and sort of focusing in on on short courses and part three tournaments, we are golf peurists at the core and looking all the way back to old Tom Morris. He was a golfer, he was a professional golfer, He won major championships, and he was also the first person to take a mower to the grass in which they were playing, uh and and cut the cut the grass and make it a better place to ultimately play.

01:09:32
Speaker 3: The game that they had in mind.

01:09:34
Speaker 4: And so somehow between then and now, there's been like this growing gap between the greens keeper's persona in golf in our opinion, and we just felt like there should be a golf brand that if you wear that article of clothing, it's one giant tip of the cap or or one of these.

01:09:56
Speaker 3: To the to the greens keeper while you're out there.

01:09:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when you think about uh uh superintendent, and and it's like they're they're actual scientists, right, Like they go to school and they get degrees in science. Like they it's it's no joke. Like I I tried to be a science major and I couldn't. I couldn't hack the chemistry classes. And it's like it's hard, and and you know, you think about the pressure of a golf course. You know there are hundreds of acres and you know, the conditioning aspect, the expectations of members. They noticed the smallest little things, and you think about your own yard. It's hard, hard to maintain your own yard when you when you guys started this, I'd love to hear about, like, you know, who were the first customers, How did you become discovered? How did how did you guys go about you know, growing into what you are today?

01:10:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean I think you know, it was a similar story to any any sort of just internet based golf brand. Like we our first move was going on Instagram, right, and we were posting cool pictures of things that were themed and deemed grassy in our opinion. And and so from there, you know, comes the website, comes some more media and imagery and videos, uh, surrounding this overarching theme in this story that we knew we wanted to tell.

01:11:33
Speaker 3: And I think really what.

01:11:38
Speaker 4: Caught on was anyone who resonated with the brand was and and you know a lot of our customers now are actually greens keepers, and so that really was the core. It was like, yeah, no, I want to be grassy. I want to tip my cap to the greens keeper, or I want to buy this for my greens keeper, or you know, I love cutting my lawn and I want to be grassy while I'm out there, you know, mowing my own lawn. So I think like the the first customer was anyone that had any sort of relationship with grass, because we we've sort of glorified grass as this. We have a saying anywhere there's grass, we glorified it as really anywhere there's a nice piece of turf is a desirable place to be, whether it's croquet, a good baseball field, you know, big polo fields that's in the middle of palm desert. They go have Coachellat in India, and it's like, because it's a giant grass field, it seems like a good idea to have a you know, hundreds of thousands of people there for a concert. And so I think it was anyone who was sort of connected from a grass standpoint.

01:12:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that. I live somewhere where a lot of yards don't have grass, and like my daughter gets really excited when we get to the park because there's like nice green grass, and it's like, you know, there's something there's like gravitational pull to grass, right and I think like you definitely are striking accord there. So with the with the par three tournament, that seems to be something that was really like a almost like a lightning rod moment for your guys brand. What was the you know, the first tournament and the reaction and where you went from there.

01:13:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we hosted the first tournament that gCO Grass Clippings Open in twenty nineteen, and we kind of launched our apparel alongside the tournament and it was a huge success. The whole idea behind the Grass Clippings Open was to have a high stakes amateur golf tournament, and we wanted to do it on a par three course for you know, several reasons. We just feel like shorter courses create more entertainment.

01:14:08
Speaker 1: It allows.

01:14:11
Speaker 5: All different types of folks to play from the same tea box. You know, you take driver out of the hand and everyone gets to play from the same tea box.

01:14:19
Speaker 4: So the the whole concept was where could we pull off a tournament that we could get ages twenty one to eighty five years old with no strokes, high entry feet and ultimately high stakes. And considering all of those things, there's a there's a great golf a great Part three golf course called.

01:14:45
Speaker 3: Mountain Shadows here in town.

01:14:47
Speaker 4: It's a well maintained par three course, which is kind of oddly hard to find a well maintained Part three course. They're always just like short, like offshoots or you know, they're after thought. And so mount Shadows does a great job. And that's like where the Grass Clippings Open started.

01:15:05
Speaker 3: And and so we Jimmy went down a road of saying, how do I get.

01:15:12
Speaker 4: All of the best pockets of golf in the valley to come onto one course and play in the.

01:15:19
Speaker 3: Grass Clippings Open.

01:15:20
Speaker 4: And so, to Jimmy's credit, we you know, started making calls to Phoenix Country Club and Silver Leaf and Whisper Rock and Papa Go and people that we knew played in the AGA and USGA events, and ultimately got the first grass Clippings Open to have this incredibly like magical field of and extremely diverse field of players and and come together and play in a two person scramble in the grass Clippings Open with no strokes, and so, you know, as as intense as it was and as high stakes as it was when you play a two person scramble on a par three course, it can only be so serious. It's not like you're like grinding and climbing through the desert looking for your ball and hitting a provisional.

01:16:20
Speaker 3: It's like it's basically only how high can you go?

01:16:25
Speaker 4: How up can you go? How many birdies can you make? How many hole and ones can you make? Right, Like there was multiple hole and ones in the tournament, and so it's it's really like just a birdie barrage, and it's how many birdies can you make?

01:16:42
Speaker 3: And so at that point.

01:16:44
Speaker 4: We knew that the Grass Clippings Open shouldn't just be like a once a year type of event. Yes, we're gonna still host the Grass Clippings Open, but really Par three golf is like the missing link to this whole entertainments, entertainment and golf like you have, you know, all kinds of non traditional golf things happening with like this was right in the time where top golf was just growing like wildfire, put shack, popstroke. But our vision is that, you know, you can still have that core entertainment value, but it's still real golf. It's still anywhere there's grass that's real grass, it's still golf.

01:17:30
Speaker 1: And so.

01:17:32
Speaker 3: We knew right.

01:17:33
Speaker 4: After that first Grass Clippings opened that Mountain Shadows wasn't going to be able to let us grow the tournament in in in accordance with the vision that we had. It's surrounded by homes, it's in Paradise Valley, which has dark sky ordinance, it has noise ordinances, and we were like, we want this, you know, to be the great this golf tournament that we know about right particularly in the short course space. And so it was after the first Grass Cuppings open that all credit to Pete Wilson said, guys, we need our own golf course if we want to take this thing where we wanted to go. And so that kicked off a three year journey to ultimately, you know, go down like a full blown, like real estate acquisition path and list out all of the golf courses where this would be possible. And then we ultimately found Rolling Hills and started that process with the city at Tempe.

01:18:42
Speaker 5: I would also just add, you know, like Jake said, we were growing out of Mountain Shadows and we needed a place to expand and create the vision we have for the Grass Coupings open. But also at that same time, we kind of realized there was a missing market par three golf. There's two hundred and fifty something golf courses in Phoenix, you know, and part three golf it just really doesn't exist around the valley or really around the United States. And so we kind of also just saw a missing market for part three golf. If you look at all the available courses, typically they're behind gates in a private community. And so we kind of said, how is Mountain Shadows the only par three course you can jump on to and play. And so the gCO and then also that missing market of a lit up par three golf, we kind of all huddled up and said, let's.

01:19:40
Speaker 2: Go do this. Yeah, there's there's a lot of directions we can go from here. The thing I think right off the bat, just talking about it, it's just par three courses and their value, right. I think what you guys hit on with the with the gCO, the age range that's feasible, right, you know if you play, I know you guys are good players. Like if you play with a seventy year old guy who used to be a good player, you know, the big advantage that you have over them is the driver, right, And you're able to get places that they can't get to, and you're hitting shorter clubs in. But when you when it's a par three course, all of a sudden, the field is so so much leveler because you're hitting approach shots and it's kind of less about physical physical ability and more about the skill of the game, right, you know, it's fascinating. I don't know if you guys know. The Wisconsin State Golf Association is held a par three, a state amateur par three tournament for years now at the Sandbox at Sam Valley, And the first year they held it, a fifty eight year old who's a four handicap won it. You know, like he beat college kids. He beat like you know, and it's a fascinating aspect. And I think the other thing with part three courts versus is like there's a lot more community. There's you know, camaraderie is formed because you know, you're not diverging off from people because you're the shots are so short that you're sticking together. Right Like if you think about like a normal round of golf, you hit a t shot and everybody goes out. What you know, with with the idea of par three courses that you know you're you're building Rolling Hills right now, and we'll get into that, but like, is your vision to build more than beyond the Phoenix market?

01:21:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean definitely is. We've kind of said as a group, we have such a great thing going on at Rolling Hills, Let's make sure we do it right there. Let's let's take the time to really make sure the course is great, the F and B is great, the experience is perfect. And once we nail that, let's go look at some other markets. You know, some things that make sense are twelve month seasons and certain things you need to make it successful, we think, but there's no doubt that there will be another Grass Clippings Part three course in a different state.

01:22:13
Speaker 2: What was it about Rolling Hills that stood out? You said you looked at a ton of different golf courses. What were the attributes that you were looking for when you when you did that due diligence on all these courses.

01:22:28
Speaker 4: There, there's like, I think three or four things. As I listened, nount will find out. So we knew we wanted to stay in the valley. Like Jimmy said, there's two hundred and fifty golf courses that are all more or less very similar, and so we knew we wanted to stay in the valley, so we went and looked for a minimum of forty acres roughly. We needed no dark sky ordnance because we knew we wanted to light the course, and then no sound ordinates, and no neighbors, no no houses really in the vicinity, right, And so by the time you check those four boxes, you are and I guess the fifth one would be finding land that's not the highest and best use is putting like office or a bunch of homes on it, because that you know, makes more money than than a big golf course, and so uh well as as now we might change that reality. But yeah, so when you consider those five things, it really narrowed down the options to like two different spots in the valley. One was blank land that didn't have any utilities running to it and there was obviously no existing golf course, and.

01:23:58
Speaker 3: Then the other one was Rolling Hills.

01:24:01
Speaker 4: And so once we found Rolling Hills, and we had grown up playing that course here and there we obviously played high school golf in the valley.

01:24:10
Speaker 3: So we played a bunch of different golf courses and we knew it was. It was awesome.

01:24:16
Speaker 4: It's in Papago Park, which is the same place that has another golf course called Papago. It's got the zoo and the botanical gardens and like cool trails and hiking and red rock buttes in there and so and it's really like a center point in the valley. It's the It borders like Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tenpee and so it's like this preserve where there's an existing executive course. We've been saying a lot of par three rolling hills is actually a par sixty two and h and so it checked all of those boxes and that's what gave us the green light to start going down that road.

01:25:00
Speaker 1: With the city.

01:25:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did that work? How did how did you you know start I think a lot of people have courses around them that they always dream of fixing up or you know, like how did you start the process of even you know, discussing with them the chance to remake and you know really like you know, rebrand their executive course.

01:25:24
Speaker 5: We got to give up all our secrets right now. Don't tell anyone, no, it's a good question. So we really had this idea and like Jake said earlier. We went all around the Phoenix metro area looking for a great location to do this, and when we identified Rolling Hills. At that time, we had kind of had our concept packaged up, and it was as simple as going going down to the city and connecting with the mayor and saying, hey, we we've identify had Rolling Hills as a great piece of property and a great place for us to to take our concept and do it here. And we presented it to city council and they reviewed it and said, you know what this is. This is a great idea, this is a place that could use some help. And so they kind of they reviewed the whole thing and came back to us and said, yeah, this is this is something we're interested in, something we're willing to talk about. And and from there, because it's city owned land, they legally have to open up a public RFP. So at that point there was a sixty day time where anyone from around the world could submit a proposal to do what we were trying to do, and so the city reviews all the proposals that are submitted, which we ultimately won, and then went into a about a two year lease negotiation with them.

01:27:06
Speaker 2: Were there other proposals like at that time, like were you getting were you nervous? Did you was there a proposal that you were like a little worried about this one?

01:27:16
Speaker 1: We were nervous.

01:27:17
Speaker 5: I mean, we're a startup company in Arcadia, in a in a small, little neighborhood. And yeah, there were six other proposals and they were all like big time management companies from across the United States. But I think that some something that stood out to the council was, Hey, this is a local group, who's showing strong interest, who's answering the phone, who's going to be hands on, who's going to show up and and really really help us out here. So I think in my opinion that in the the fifteen million dollars going into the property probably was the reason we won.

01:27:59
Speaker 2: All right, so let's talk about the plan and in the proposal that you guys put together and what you guys are doing at Rolling Hills. So it was an existing part sixty two golf course, what will it be when it's when it's done, and you know in terms of facilities as well as the golf course, and and you know kind of what what's the plan?

01:28:23
Speaker 4: So I guess a good way to segue on the city process into what actually is going to happen. So one of the major selling points was this is one of two city attenpee properties that has a golf course involved in it, and so they held the Rolling Hills golf course and still do very near and dear to their hearts. And one of the key attributes to our proposal was based on the existing operations, which is really confined to just golf and people going to the driving range. We estimated around seventy five thousand people enter those gates on an annual basis to go enjoy the Rolling Hills property, and our proposal was to create reasons beyond just golf to go and enjoy this ninety three acre essentially not essentially a public park for the city of Tempeede, right. And so after our improvements, we're expecting in the range of three hundred to four hundred thousand people now going through the gates. And so you ask, what's in the proposal, what are we doing? And we like to say it's if we started from scratch right now and we maybe got a couple of beers and sat down and said, what do we want to do?

01:29:53
Speaker 3: To this place.

01:29:54
Speaker 4: It would be that list right where it's We know, we want to make improvements to the actual golf course itself. Redo shape some of the tea boxes to be flatter than they currently are. We're moving one of the holes to make room for some additional amenities going in which I'll cover. So's it's golf course actual improvements. It's lighting the course with Musco Lighting. They're basically the number one sports lighting company in the industry, so they've been incredible to work with. Also, a lot of existing lighted golf courses are like flickering yellow like street light.

01:30:38
Speaker 3: Your ball you.

01:30:40
Speaker 4: Lose it when it's at its peak flight and then it comes back into view. This is going to be like state of the art, you know, perfect, brand new lighting, and so that's a big thing. The existing driving range is really pretty tired, so it's a full renovation of you know, restripping the hitting areas, putting covered hitting obviously it's we're sitting here in Phoenix, it's one hundred and fourteen today, so covered hitting base is really really important. Through the hot seasons here, We're going to be adding stuff like top tracers so you can go out there a lot of driving.

01:31:15
Speaker 3: Ranges are implementing that right now.

01:31:19
Speaker 4: And then as far as the you know, how do you get from seventy five thousand patrons to three hundred, A lot of it has to do with the improvements to the clubhouse and the food and beverage experience. There's an existing ten thousand square foot clubhouse that hasn't been touched since the eighties, so it's tired. It doesn't smell exactly great in there right now, and so we're going for a full renovation of indoor covered patio, event lawn and then open air bar to sort of create.

01:31:59
Speaker 3: Really something that not even that a golf course but in the valley.

01:32:04
Speaker 4: Here in Phoenix doesn't exist like the most ideal place on a good day or really any day, but to go and enjoy a couple hours of time, whether you're planning on playing.

01:32:16
Speaker 1: Golf or not.

01:32:18
Speaker 2: The lighted aspect of it, especially in the summer, has to be like a huge draw. The you know, like playing golf at this time of year there is kind of miserable and like having an option when when it I mean, because what are the loads are? What seventy at night there this time.

01:32:35
Speaker 5: Of year, we wish, Yeah, we wish it stays closer.

01:32:39
Speaker 1: To one hundred at night.

01:32:40
Speaker 2: Oh my god, see see.

01:32:42
Speaker 5: Drop down to ninety ish, But it stays in the ninety.

01:32:46
Speaker 1: But to your point, like.

01:32:48
Speaker 5: To be able to go play golf when the sun goes down in the summer is going to be huge for all of Arizona.

01:32:55
Speaker 4: And not to mention even in the winter months, right, the sun goes down on at five or six, and the last twilight tea times are two hours before that. So we're talking three four o'clock is really like the last point in which you could go tee off and get in, get nine holes in maybe, And so that just doesn't really apply to this golf course anymore. The lights will be on year round from anywhere from ten to we can keep them on till two am. We got to talk to back to where we started. The greens keepers. They're the ones that are a little bit worried about the high volume out there, and so as long as as long as they're good, then then we'll be we'll be maintaining quite a bit of golf play out there.

01:33:50
Speaker 2: I imagine with the high volume, you're looking at things with design to mitigate that would like bigger greens. Is that stuff you're looking at and maybe talk about what you're doing on the design side a little bit.

01:34:04
Speaker 1: For sure.

01:34:06
Speaker 5: That was actually a huge reason we hired Jackson Kahn to do the renovation. So David and David Kahan Tim Jackson are the ones leading charge on on design and they're they've probably designed one of my favorite courses ever in Scottsdale National.

01:34:25
Speaker 1: The other course.

01:34:26
Speaker 2: It's an amazing golf course.

01:34:28
Speaker 1: Amazing.

01:34:29
Speaker 5: The other course is uh what it's called issar three's six par four, six par five.

01:34:38
Speaker 3: Creative.

01:34:38
Speaker 5: It's the perfect gambling course. But anyways, we we hired them, uh specifically for that reason. But we're also doing and we can get into Jackson con you know, David is running point here and and he is amazing to work with, and his vision and his ability to understand our concept and jump right into it is amazing. But we're doing things like so we have big, big tea boxes and then on those tea boxes, we have ten by eleven synthetic uh turf placed inside the big tea boxes. So you know, certain nights we might we may hit off of synthetic grass just to give the real grass a rest. But you know, David designs pretty big greens. The first one he did is the Ninthfold, which is pushing seven thousand square feet, So the ability to put the pin in different locations and let the grass rest. But there's all sorts of different tricks and grasses that we specifically will use that uh you know, do better uh in leather and in in a ton of play and so things like that are we're taking into consideration and doing one.

01:35:58
Speaker 4: One of Jackson cohn uh biggest value points is replay value. Right, So a lot of the courses that they design, and obviously this is a renovation, so they're inheriting a lot of they're inheriting the routing, they're inheriting, you.

01:36:16
Speaker 3: Know, a lot of aspects to the golf course.

01:36:17
Speaker 4: And we're not redoing too much of the golf course at this point, like a lot of the green complexes are staying. But thinking of replay value is something that they've even through just this taught us how important it is. And so what that means is the ability to go through the golf course and then play it again the same day and play it from a different tea box, a different length, a different angle, so one of the things we're doing early on here is is adding additional te boxes to accommodate those different lengths in different angles. You know, you could have you could have one one side where you have a ton of green to work with and it's an easy approach, and then you just come at like fifteen degrees to a different side and you're now short sighted with a bunker and a rock threatening your approach, right, And so that's that's been top of mind as we've approached the renovation.

01:37:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, from from a turn perspective, when you want to do the gCO, it can offer a lot of different flexibility. So how many holes will the will the course be when it's when it's finished, It's eighteen holes, okay.

01:37:35
Speaker 4: Although our first proposal was twenty two got rejected. Yeah, our twenty two hole proposal got rejected.

01:37:43
Speaker 5: We confused people they were they just could not understand why we would have twenty two holes, And to us it was really simple, why wouldn't we have twenty two holes? You know, every time I finish eighteen, I'm looking for a few more to play. If you're in a tight money game, you need a good playoff whole loop. But uh yeah, no, it's an eighteen hole golf course.

01:38:05
Speaker 2: That's uh, you know, there's a there's a I don't know if you guys are familiar with mcmeniment's in Portland, if you heard of them, they do. They have a part they do like they do they have breweries and hotels and different hospitality things. But they have a thing called the pub Course in Oregon. And it's like they have a twelve hole course and a twenty two whole par three course and the whole premise of the place. Yeah, you go. You don't bring your own clubs. You get one club and a potter and a ball and it's just this little old old school like dive bar type feel where you check in, you get a beer, you go play your golf. It's a really cool place. But you know, along the same line, but completely you know, you know, twenty two twelve holes like not nine and eighteen. And I think, like, you know, it's it's fascinating to be like you think about like presenting some take the government and like you know, they aren't necessarily the most open minded of you know people. So the idea of going away from eighteen holes, even though you're adding your It's not like you were even taking away, you're adding holes, Like we want to know.

01:39:16
Speaker 1: It was pretty good.

01:39:18
Speaker 5: I mean, working with the city of Tip Tempe, I will say it was fabulous. But certainly those early stage presentations, you know, we were presenting pretty wild concepts in our opinion, would have been pretty cool. And then presenting to the public was also a challenge. The folks that have played there forever were like, so again, why are you doing twenty two holes? You typically just play eighteen. The main thing really with the proposal.

01:39:53
Speaker 4: Was the public, right, Like there are people that call Rolling Hills their home golf and have done so for forty years, and and so one of them actually was my sixth grade teacher, and uh, it was insane, Like she she was opposed to the proposal that I was championing. And I'm like, you had a part in creating me, right, like you should support you should support this. I was thinking about that the whole right, Like she was responsible for like queuing my brain to you know, make an impact on the world. And here I am and she's and we're just getting shot down. And and so I think the relationship that we found between the city and the stakeholders, which were really like fifty people that love, live and breathe with the Rolling Hills golf course as it currently is.

01:40:58
Speaker 3: Council was like, you know, all of these idea are great.

01:41:00
Speaker 4: Obviously, we want more people to enjoy it, like we love the enthusiasm. We want to be cutting edge and golf and the city Attempe has two golf courses and like, heck yad, this sounds incredible, but go talk to the stakeholders.

01:41:17
Speaker 3: That's what it was.

01:41:18
Speaker 4: And so really the entire fight, for a lack of better terms, I'm sure a lot of them are going to listen to this podcast, but really the entire fight was like, like, we're coming in. Clearly this golf course is struggling. It needs an update. It hasn't had one in thirty or forty years.

01:41:38
Speaker 3: This is what we want to do. And a lot of the fight was just creating the trust.

01:41:43
Speaker 4: And when you come out saying that you want to do twenty two holes, it's for a traditionalist it's not the best look, I will admit, especially if you don't know who this grass clippings is and they say stay grassy, and why do they see like so there was just a lot of learning curves involved.

01:42:02
Speaker 1: Andy.

01:42:03
Speaker 5: You can't imagine some of the stories going around town as to what we had planned for this golf course. I, I, Jake and I and and the rest of the team would show up to these public gatherings to kind of update them, you know, and and folks would raise their hand and and I guess one story would be, uh, someone said, you know, I'm not supporting this. You know, a top golf with a Hilton Hilton in on this property does.

01:42:33
Speaker 1: Not make sense.

01:42:34
Speaker 3: And we're like, what what do you what are you talking about?

01:42:39
Speaker 5: And so the story and of of our concept just got hijacked early on and and certainly made it difficult for us. We're like, guys, we're just trying to make it a little better of a golf course than it is today.

01:42:55
Speaker 4: One giant game of telephone, Yeah, where people would tell us about our proposal things we didn't know, and we were like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know how you got there.

01:43:05
Speaker 3: We're still a golf course.

01:43:08
Speaker 2: I imagine your slogan stay grassy, probably like you know, certain people took that the wrong way too, right, Yeah, that's uh.

01:43:16
Speaker 4: We launched right around when we became legal, so there was people who drew some parallels and we haven't dabbled in that space yet. We've had every single dispensary come ask if we can collab with them, and we were like, we're not opposed, but let's just let's just put it on hold for a little bit. Let's establish ourselves as as just something about the greenskeeper.

01:43:42
Speaker 5: It's pretty funny. We have we have one h our, one and only little boutique shop is is where we are right now in Arcadia and out front it says grass clipping, Stay grassy, and and early on the first year, people would walk in and we'd be sitting here, you know, and and they would right when they had walked in, they'd just freeze and kind of look around and be like and we're like, can we help you?

01:44:07
Speaker 3: And they're like, uh, I thought this what what is this?

01:44:11
Speaker 1: Right?

01:44:12
Speaker 3: This is a golf shot?

01:44:13
Speaker 1: And like oh, wrong, wrong place?

01:44:16
Speaker 5: Looking for something else.

01:44:18
Speaker 2: Oh that's that's great. Uh yeah, I see the hats. I see the hats a tournaments like you know, so it's it's cool. I always like, you know, I always appreciate what I see, just randomly, like our merchandise around and and you know this year, I've seen I've seen the State grassy stuff at the Masters, i saw them at the US Open, and uh, you know it was something that I had started falling earlier in the year, and you recognize it. And but like if you're just a passerby, you might think something completely different. So it's it's fast. It's amazing to hear that you get random, random drop ins from people thinking that you're doing that, you got something else there, So.

01:44:55
Speaker 5: They're certainly looking for some all the time, all the time.

01:44:58
Speaker 3: At least we have a vivid option.

01:45:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, that's the You don't have to just shut it down. You could you could go go you got great branding for that.

01:45:08
Speaker 3: One more leg, one more leg to stand on.

01:45:10
Speaker 2: Uh, what what are the what's the timeline and kind of the plans for for reopening.

01:45:18
Speaker 4: So uh, our original plan to continue to weave in the city process was to shut the golf course down while we did the renovations.

01:45:30
Speaker 5: That was a no go.

01:45:32
Speaker 4: It's a no fly zone. And so it's actually open right now. You can go play grass clippings at Rolling Hills and it's a little it's a little messy. It's a little construction site, but it's playable and the lights are going to be the first phase, and it's the first permit that's going in.

01:45:57
Speaker 3: It's already in, it's already generally approved.

01:46:01
Speaker 4: So the lights hopefully go up while the course is closed through overseas, and then the renovations on everything else will start actually.

01:46:09
Speaker 3: Right around that time as well.

01:46:12
Speaker 1: In the full.

01:46:15
Speaker 4: Scope of the project should be done around May or June of twenty twenty four. But you will be able to play night golf hopefully November December.

01:46:27
Speaker 2: That's awesome, it'd be yeah. I mean it's gonna be with the tourism that Scottsdale and Phoenix and Tempe get with for golf and the you know, I think always like when you think about winter golf resorts, right, you know, people always talk about a stream song and in places like that, it's like, yeah, it's hard when your peak season is the shortest days of the year because there's only so many people you can get around and you know, providing effectively an option for people. You know, that top golf I've been to in Scottsdale. The place is slam you know, all winter long. But it's providing real golf option is amazing and what better way than to play like a Part three course at eight nine o'clock at night when you're on a golf trip, right, totally, so totally. How can people follow along and in and find you? Guys?

01:47:21
Speaker 4: The best way to follow along is going to be through social media. It's going to be following us on Instagram and or Twitter primarily grass Clippings Dot Club. And then we just launch and I think we're on what we're on our fifth sixth episode for our new YouTube channel, and so that YouTube channel, if you really want to go like the most in depth and actually behind the scenes on all fronts, both golf course and grass Clippings open, it would be to tune into the YouTube channel and that handles Grass Clippings twenty eighteen, and that is a behind the scenes on really like everything that we're doing here at Grass Clippings, anything from architectural meetings on the golf course, on the restaurant meeting and hiring chefs and head pros and working the inter operations of the golf course, all of the decision making we're doing, which is sort of like a never ending thing. And then about to release the information on the grass Clippings Open and the new look of the tournament. And so I guess the cliff notes on that are we held a Calcutta for the grass Clippings Open, and the calcutta, you know, would get to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars plus. And so it created this like sense of team ownership where third parties would come in whether they're individuals or syndicates, and they would have a plan and buy a team in the grass Clippings Open, follow them throughout the entire week. So we're actually going to be launching a little bit more of a permanent team ownership situation for the grass Clippings Open, where you can you can buy a team on an annual basis and compete in the event and then have access to the purse and winnings which will be in the in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So the two main things are create the executive short Course Part three course to host the events that we want to put on. And then and obviously we're focused on that being an everyday thing, but it also is the new home of the grass Clippings Open golf tournaments. In series golf tournaments that will accommodate this new look at at golf and team ownership and.

01:50:07
Speaker 2: Competition, because guys are going right after Live, you know, team ownership, you know, yeah, coming for.

01:50:16
Speaker 3: I mean we were for sure, and it's been in the workings for quite some time.

01:50:22
Speaker 4: And I think we've learned a couple of things from Live, like maybe uh, find more intriguing names than the fireballs or whatever.

01:50:30
Speaker 1: What are some of the names.

01:50:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, the branding behind the Live seems like it was put together quickly.

01:50:42
Speaker 3: So yeah.

01:50:43
Speaker 4: But and then obviously we're we're just like siloed on short course golf and scramble format. That's that's where we're going to live. We're not we're not going anything. We're not trying to be anything else.

01:50:58
Speaker 3: Other than other than that.

01:51:00
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's awesome. It's I always love hearing how things get started, and it's a it's amazing to see you guys having success and you know, look forward to checking in when the when the courses, uh, when when it's done and stopping by next time I'm in in the Phoenix area.

01:51:21
Speaker 4: For sure, we gotta get you out here. We can uh, we can record a follow up. If you'll have us at the course, we'll get some mic set up. But yeah, it'll be uh, it'll be an awesome spot.

01:51:34
Speaker 1: You know.

01:51:35
Speaker 3: It's sort of an all our welcome vibe out there.

01:51:38
Speaker 2: All right. Thanks guys, cool, Thank you, thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Russ's Thank you Matt. As a quick reminder, we've got a lot of stuff humming in Club TFE. The latest thing that we've got up there is our Member Guest along with a bunch of other great content, but our member Guest event that will be in October, end of October in California. You can check it out there if you're a member, if you're looking to become a member, we're delivering three to four some week's five new pieces of content on top of a lot of other benefits. You can see them all at the fridagg dot com slash membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year, and it really does a ton to support the content that we're creating on a daily basis, and as we continue to attempt to produce more great content that you guys will enjoy, so visit the fridagg dot com slash membership to get those details, and we will be back next week with a couple new podcasts, The